Professor Ivana Bacik Awarded

Posted on: 16 April 2018

At a ceremony in London on 26th March Senator Ivana Bacik, LLB, LLM (Lond), BL, FTCD, Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin, was made Honorary Master of the Bench of Middle Temple Inn of Court.

A modern institution with a long and distinguished history, Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court which have the exclusive right to call students to the Bar. With the education and training of advocates at the heart of the Inn, Middle Temple is a professional society for a worldwide membership. Middle Temple currently has 465 Ordinary Benchers and 92 Senior (retired) Benchers. The Inn also elects Honorary Masters of the Bench, distinguished individuals who have excelled in their respective professions.

Ivana Bacik is a Labour Party Senator for Trinity College (elected in 2007, re-elected in 2011 and again in 2016). She has been Leader of the Labour Party and the Seanad since 2011 and was Deputy Leader of Seanad Éireann from 2011 to 2016.

Ivana has been Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Law School since 1996, and became a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2005. She has an LLB from TCD and an LLM from the London School of Economics. She practised for years as a barrister, and teaches courses in criminal law; criminology; and feminist theory and law at Trinity. Her research interests include criminal law and criminology, constitutional law, feminist theories and law, human rights and equality issues in law.

Ivana has written and published extensively on criminal law, criminology, human rights, constitutional law and related matters, and has a long track record of campaigning on civil rights liberties, penal reform and feminist issues. She was Editor of the Irish Criminal Law Journal from 1997 to 2003 and co-authored a major report on gender discrimination in the legal professions in Ireland (Gender InJustice, 2003). Her other publications include Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the Twenty-First Century (O’Brien Press, 2004), and she is co-editor (with Mary Rogan) of  Legal Cases that Changed Ireland (Clarus Press, 2016). She is Chairperson of the Oireachtas Vótáil 100 Programme, the series of events being run by the Houses of the Oireachtas to celebrate the 2018 centenary of women’s suffrage in Ireland.